Harry Potter: Beef, or no beef?
 

Alright. Let's just get it out of the way.

I really don't mind Harry Potter. It's a fun book series to read. Really.

My biggest problem is that I like it for the same reason people hate it; it's one long, branching storyline with the same plucky 'good guys,' and the same neccesary 'bad guys.' Voldemort is at the head of it all, and Harry always manages to defeat him. I really don't mind that, and I can understand if people do.

And, while we're on this discussion, try to avoid the edgy "I just, y'know, didnt like the material, see? Just wasn't my thing." Well that's fine, but if you could please just explain why you didn't like it, I'd be happy. I just want to see more fleshed out arguements than these one liners:

"It's just all the same, over and over again."
"It's too cliche."
"It was too childish."
"It's just a fad, it's not good."

It frustrates me, because these come from people who have girlfriends/boyfriends/relatives who are obsessed with Harry Potter, and they hear second-hand all of the awesome stuff that happens in the books and go, "Well, see, I really did read it, and I just didn't like it." I have friends who are liars.

*Mega Man music*
You got
A New Rant!

I'll be the first to come out and say that, for many years, I stayed away from the little near-sighted, magical orphan boy. It was hugely popular, and that always disgusts me. Millions of people love Harry Potter, right? Well, millions of people loved Hitler, too. I watched the first movie as well, twice. I found it all terribly annoying. Not to say that the other characters weren't interesting at all, but Harry himself just sorta bothered me. I suppose that, given his name is in the title, the story's going to be all about him.

Well, finally, I read one of the books, and I loved it. Order of the Phoenix, even, which everyone apparently hates. I got completely engrossed in the plot, characters, and overall writing of it. Tore through that sucker in no time. So yeah, you can call me a fan. As with a great deal of things that I get into, it was done so reluctantly, but it all worked out in the end.

Still, I do wish it was less about "All Harry, All the Time" as I've found that I like every single other character more, but you can't win 'em all.

I liked the one where Harry finally told Dumbledore to go fuck himself.

That was a long time coming.

I used to call Harry Potter "fantasy light". This applies more to the earlier books and falls away as the series grew more mature with it's subjects. (And which is why I'd wish that parents wouldn't neccesarily just give them the new books. Especially since the movies are pretty much PG-13 material, and that's with a lot of stuff cut from the book.

So yeah, earlier it was like candy: sweet but unfulfilling, then it became something a bit more.

Honestly? Good writing, but nowhere near enough to earn the kind of accolades this lady is getting. I think it's just a matter of right place/right time.

Still, it got a lot of people to crack open a book, and in the end, I have to approve of that.

The Wandering God

I say less and less meat as the series rolls on. It was a cute series at first--tho' the only thing that really separated it from the pack seemed to be and still is its [expletive deleted] media juggernaut--but I think it's just gotten less interesting over the last several books. For one thing, J.K. Rowling's editors seem to be in some sort of pants-piddling terror of her--at least, that's the only explanation I can think of. I really think that an editor without the Fear of Rowling in them could have reduced Book 5's bulk for the better by at least a quarter. (No, I haven't read Book 6. I haven't really been able to summon up the excitement for it, and besides, when 6 came out I was busy with A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is by my personal reckoning miles ahead of Potter and Co., any way you slice it.) It's not a *bad* series, as such--there's a lot worse out there--but I think it suffers because J.K. is apparently still Shit-Hot In Publishing now and anything she puts in there goes. Even the stuff she ripped from fan-fic :p . Even the proposed Harry-Draco-Hermione-Cho orgy planned for Book 7 (you heard it here first, folks :p ).

And fifth--if that was verbatim, then my faith in (or at least my curiosity about) the Harry Potter series might just be restored. Otherwise, pleh.

I'm actually a big fan of Harry Potter, but only the books. The movies were a terrible translation of the characters. The series itself for me was a roller coaster. Really loved the first book, hated the second one, third one was okay, fourth one loved again, the fifth one is my favorite, and the sixth one was terrible. The only thing that really depressed me about the story was the fact that JK killed my favorite character. Sirius Black was so cool, and she had to go and kill him. Why couldn't she have killed Hermione? I hope at least one of the trio dies in the last book to give Harry that last push to defeat Voldemort, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

BTW, anyone else notice that the Dark Mark looks like a muffin? Look on the back cover of the sixth book, Gineko pointed this out to me and now we call Voldemort the Muffin Man. ^_^

The best book of the series was Book Four. The last two have been somewhat disappointing. Nothing really happens in Book Five, which is amazing considering it is almost nine-hundred pages long, and the only thing that is different in Book Six is that none of Harry's friends believe that Draco and Snape are up to something. Overall, though, I am a fan of the series, since the books are easy to read, and they are a nice light alternative to the fiction I usually partake of. Here's hoping that J. K. can write us a winner in the final book of the series.

I'm a fan of Harry Potter myself but, as it has been said before, only for the books. I still haven't read the sixth book yet, which I need to go do still...I liked all of them and I keep going back to read them.

Really do hate all of the toys/movies that came from it, though.

Strange. I was somehow expecting to get all of the people who didn't like Harry Potter to rant first.

Learn something new.

I hope nobody spoiled book 6 for you.

The Wandering God